Imagine If We Settled on Titan

Are you ready for a new start? Are you sick and tired of Earth and all its problems? Well, here’s your chance to start fresh, by moving to Titan! Yes, you heard me. Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, could be your new home away from home. Even if you weren’t1.5 billion km (900 million mi)away from Earth, starting a community is extremely hard. Luckily for you, we’re here to help you work out the kinks. You know, the first thing teach you in real estate is; location, location, location. And thankfully, Titan fits the bill.

Titan is the most Earth-like place in our Solar System because of its thick atmosphere and water on its surface. Of course, there are some differences you’re going to have to get used to. Differences like Titan having1.6 time the atmospheric pressure of Earth. That’s the same pressure you'd feel diving about 5 m (16.f t) down into the ocean. On the plus side, Titan has seasonal changes that would let you rock your new fall getup. And I hope you like it, because on Titan a season lasts about seven Earth years.

The main pull, however, is Titan’s abundant supply of hydrocarbons. They could be used to build shelters, and for energy sources. OK, that was a good enough reason for us to set up shop here, but how exactly would we create our community? Well, the first step would be to send a fleet of smart robots to start prepping for human settlers. The robots could start constructing houses, buildings, and mines.

Since Titan is filled with hydrocarbons, such as methane and ethane, it makes sense to convert them into plastic and use them as building materials. As for powering the settlement, we’d have to cover about 10%of Titan's surface with solar panels. That’s no small feat, but with a little elbow grease and scientific know-how, we could pull it off. Next, it’s time to make ourselves at home. But what would life on Titan be like anyway? Well, first you’re going to have to bundle up. The surface temperature on Titanic -179 °C (-290 °F). Translation: it’s really cold. We would need to build large domes with self-sustaining ecosystems for us to stay alive. Those self-sustaining ecosystems would provide us with food.

We would take the lessons learned from the International Space Station on how to grow lettuce, peas, and radishes. These have all been successfully grown in their space garden, and will help us to understand how low gravity affects plants. With less sunlight reaching Titan than our plants are used to, we’d need to add additional lighting to make our galactic greenhouse thrive. But what if vegetables weren’t cutting it? What if you had a craving for juicy, meaty Earth burger? Well, we could use cellular agriculture to grow meat from animal cells in large bioreactors. And for snacks, we could farm insects .Ok, hear me out. Insects are a great source of protein. Farming insects is energy efficient as it doesn’t require a lot of farmland, energy, or water. Come on, just try some. So, we could set up our colony, and work together in harmony to HEY! who stole my cricket sandwich? Like in any society, not everyone is going to play nice. So, what do we do about crime in space?

Thankfully, we have a contingency plan. A researcher at the University of California suggested that committing a crime on Mars, would be so hard to do, that no one would be tempted to try it. The same could be said for our Titan colony. This is because of all the monitoring data that would be needed, such as airlocks opening and closing, exact GPS data about your whereabouts, your vital signs, adrenaline levels, and so on. If someone did commit a crime, all that data would make it pretty easy to identify the criminal. That will teach you. This is my cricket sandwich! And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to go to Titan. In the beginning, we would need skilled laborers to build it, with engineers, nurses, farmers, and cooks. Much like the way a community on Earth is made up of all kinds of people with different skills, we would need someone like you in our new home on Titan.